‘The home secretary and chancellor are to launch a joint assault on fraud, bribery, corruption and money laundering. Sajid Javid and Philip Hammond will chair a new taskforce that will work with senior figures in the financial sector to tackle economic crime. This is a broad category covering a range of illegal activity, with the Home Office estimating its scale to be at least £14.4bn a year.’

‘The lawyer who represented the defendant in what became the first conviction for ‘failure to prevent bribery’ has said it is ‘unfortunate’ that a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) was not offered and that a larger company may have been given more preferential treatment.’

‘The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) will not appeal to the Supreme Court last month’s ruling that documents generated in connection with an investigation into the Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) were protected by litigation privilege, it has confirmed.’

‘The Sentencing Council has published its assessment of the impact of its Fraud, Bribery and Money Laundering offences guideline on sentencing trends, under its statutory duty to monitor the operation and effect of its sentencing guidelines and to draw conclusions from this information.’

‘The conviction of a company and the jailing of two former company directors for offences under the UK Bribery Act should serve as a warning to businesses over a new tax evasion corporate offence, according to a tax law expert.’

‘The UK courts have backed Petrofac boss Ayman Asfari in his battle against Italian insider trading allegations by ruling that he was not served notice of the charges leveled against him by the Italian authorities. The High Court ruling backs Mr Asfari’s claim that the shock sanctions leveled against him last summer by the Italian authorities did not follow due process, meaning he was unable to defend himself against the charges before they were imposed.’

‘Traded companies, banks and insurers with a calendar financial year will be assessing how to comply with new non-financial reporting obligations over the coming months, including the obligation to report on anti-bribery and anti-corruption matters.’

‘The “strong public interest” in pursuing claims for fraud, bribery and corruption may justify allowing the use of documents obtained in one set of legal proceedings in a different set of proceedings, the High Court has ruled.’

‘Allegations that British American Tobacco was involved in bribery and corruption in Africa are being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office, despite the cigarette company’s attempts to downplay the significance of a whistleblower who handed over a dossier of evidence.’

‘A crowdfunding campaign has been launched to raise funds for a potential legal challenge to Theresa May’s parliamentary deal with the Democratic Unionist party, on the grounds that it breaches the Good Friday agreement.’